ICDI - After more than a decade of war, Yemen stands as an example of a profound failure of strategy and reason by domestic leadership, regional intervention, and international diplomacy. In 2025, Yemen’s war became increasingly entangled with broader Middle East geopolitical recalibrations — especially around Red Sea security and changing Gulf relations — which have posed major challenges for diplomacy.
The end of 2025 marked a decisive rupture in the partnership in Yemen between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as years of concealed rivalry gave way to open political and military confrontation. Yemen’s conflict pits the Iran-backed Houthi armed group, which controls much of the north after toppling the internationally recognized government, against a fractured, Saudi-supported internationally recognized government located in the south, with both sides fighting for control over the Yemeni state. Complicating this divide, the UAE has long backed the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC), seeking autonomy or independence for southern Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s direct intervention against the UAE-backed STC in eastern Yemen last December signaled a broader escalation, with Riyadh now actively moving to curb and roll back Emirati influence across the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. Saudi Arabia now views Abu Dhabi’s proxy-based expansion as a direct threat to its strategic security belt. In parallel, Saudi Arabia has moved to reclaim stewardship over the southern issue, shifting it from an Emirati-managed proxy arena to a Saudi-supervised political track centered on dialogue by Riyadh convening southern leaders. This breakdown of relations between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi is almost certainly going to be a defining factor shaping Yemen’s conflict dynamics in 2026.
Three factors that could shape the conflict in 2026
It is difficult to predict with confidence what Yemen’s trajectory will be in 2026. Still, a few dynamics are likely to weigh more heavily than others: a conflict that remains stuck in a stalemate and fragmentation, deeper regional entanglements, and the humanitarian fallout of both. There is little indication that the war will move beyond this impasse. If anything, division itself now seems to function as the organizing principle of Yemen’s political landscape. With the Houthis firmly entrenched in the north and the anti-Houthi camp increasingly fractured across the south and east, it is hard to see what incentives exist for compromise rather than continued entrenchment.
The second uncertainty lies in regional geopolitics. With Red Sea security concerns, intensifying Gulf rivalries, and the possibility of a United States military strike on Iran, all converging, Yemen risks being treated as a secondary arena in wider strategic contests. Saudi Arabia’s pursuit of de-escalation in Yemen usually fails to translate into diplomatic engagement. At the same time, the proxy forces that the UAE has built in the south will not simply dissolve overnight. In this context, the Houthis may seek to exploit the situation by launching military offensives in areas they aim to expand. Whether they can do so, however, remains an open question, hinging largely on the level of support they continue to receive from Iran — and on Iran’s own fate should a US military confrontation materialize.
The final—and most unsettling—question is how long Yemen’s humanitarian catastrophe can continue to sit on the political sidelines. More than half of the population, an estimated 19.5 million people, now depend on humanitarian assistance, including 4.8 million internally displaced persons and over 61,000 refugees and asylum seekers. Yet even at this scale, the crisis no longer provokes urgency among donors, international institutions, or regional mediators. Aid is increasingly constrained and politicized through funding cuts, obstruction of aid, Houthis’ detentions of civil society and UN agency workers, donor conditionality, and access restrictions, while economic collapse and institutional decay deepen in the background. Ordinary Yemenis pay the price, day after day. And yet, history shows that desperation is rarely passive. One day, the pressure it creates may spill over in ways that no strategy, no negotiation, can contain.
Possible scenarios
These three dynamics create a context in which a range of outcomes is possible. How the conflict unfolds will depend on a number of moving parts: whether the Saudi-UAE rivalry escalates or stabilizes, whether the Houthis decide to push into new territory, and whether the international community steps in—or stays on the sidelines. Seen in this light, Yemen’s path over the coming year could follow two very different directions.
Scenario one: fragmentation vs stabilization
In the most optimistic scenario, Saudi Arabia manages to reassert itself as the dominant external broker in Yemen, reining in rival armed actors and nudging the fractured Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) toward at least a semblance of cohesion—a trajectory Riyadh has already begun to signal through its recent announcement of large-scale financial support for Yemen’s security and development sectors, particularly in southern areas previously dominated by UAE-backed forces.
A reduction in Emirati interference — whether due to shifting priorities or external pressure — would ease southern tensions and allow the council to exercise authority over its previously independent military units. In this scenario, the PLC would not suddenly transform into a fully functioning government, but it could begin to regain credibility, present a united front in negotiations with the Houthis, and establish clearer chains of command that make governance possible rather than purely reactive.
Yet even here, the gains would be fragile. Any stabilization would depend on Riyadh’s continued engagement, the council members’ willingness to subordinate personal ambitions, and the ability to balance external influence without appearing to cede sovereignty. Also, it depends on confronting Israel’s increasing entanglement in Gulf rivalries, aligning quietly with the UAE, and expanding its presence in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa — developments that Riyadh views as a strategic threat and factor in regional competition.
If all goes well, for the first time in years, Yemen could move from a state of pure paralysis to one where decisions are made, priorities set, and the country is at least minimally steered rather than drifting. It would not be a solution to Yemen’s deeper fractures, but a conditional stabilization that offers a space for peace talks.
Scenario two: entrenched fragmentation
The more likely — and more dangerous — scenario is one in which Saudi Arabia cannot fully assert control over southern armed groups, while the UAE quietly backs separatist and local forces in the south and east – a dynamic that risks escalating local violence and undermining the PLC’s authority — a pattern already evident in the large, recurrent pro-STC protests in Aden, which signal persistent popular legitimacy for the separatists despite Saudi-backed military gains.
In this trajectory, competition over territory, resources, and external patronage will intensify, particularly in regions such as Hadramout, where long-standing grievances are increasingly framed in autonomist or separatist terms. Fragmentation will become self-reinforcing, as armed groups resist any political settlement that threatens their economic lifelines or local dominance. National peace talks will likely stall, not only because of the Houthis, but because no unified counterpart exists on the other side. Frustrated by Saudi Arabia’s recent moves, the Houthis could respond with a military push toward areas they intend to advance into, framing Riyadh — not the UAE — as Yemen’s chief adversary. Houthi official, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, has already accused Saudi Arabia of steering the war for its own strategic and territorial gain, manipulating regional actors, and placing its interests above Yemeni unity. While Houthis remain wary of the UAE and its ties to Israel, the Houthis portray Saudi actions as the greater threat — tools of a broader agenda serving American and Israeli ambitions under the veneer of religion.
In this context, Yemen drifts further toward a Libya- or Somalia-style model: a formally recognized government with shrinking authority, multiple competing power centers, and a conflict that no longer moves toward resolution.
Ultimately, 2026 is unlikely to be a year of resolution for Yemen. The question is not whether the war will end, but whether it will continue to be managed through fragmentation, external bargaining, and humanitarian containment. As regional actors recalibrate their priorities and Yemeni institutions remain hollowed out, Yemen risks slipping further into a conflict that no one is actively trying to win — or end. What happens next will depend less on new peace initiatives than on whether those with power, inside and outside Yemen, are willing to accept the costs of continued division as the status quo.
*This article was first written for and published on ICDI's website on 26 January. Original link is here.
